52-6 



NATURE 



{March 29, 1888 



appear to extend beyond the chromosphere before and after 

 totality. 



The unfavourable conditions under which the observations 

 were made as compared with Mr. Lockyer's — with a low sun 

 and through passing clouds, and an atmosphere charged with 

 moisture which doubtless diminished the light in this region of 

 the spectrum considerably — perhaps account in some measure for 

 the striking difference in vividness of the phenomena. The 

 solar activity was also much nearer minimum in l886 than in 

 1882. As far as they go, however, the observations are con- 

 firmatory of Mr. Lockyer's, except in the visibility of the line k 

 after totality. This line was not noted before totality, and it is 

 possible that the observation may be spurious, although the 

 evidence for it is as good as that for all the observations, which 

 were found to be generally of a difficult character. The instru- 

 ment used was a 6-inch refractor by Simms, with a grating 

 spectroscope ; the grating being \\ inch square, ruled with 

 17,000 lines to the inch. The second order of spectrum was 

 used. 



(2) During totality I was directed to look for currents in the 

 corona. I can only report a negative result. The structure of 

 the corona appeared in a 4-inch refractor, with a power of 80, 

 to be radial to the limb throughout, and no striking differences 

 in special localities were noticed. 



Appended to the paper are two drawings which do not attempt 

 to give more than the distances to which the coronal rays ex- 

 tended in various directions. One was made by Mr. St. George 

 with an opera-glass, and the other by Lieut. Smith with the 

 naked eye ; but in the latter case the observer's eyes had been 

 specially covered fifteen minutes before totality, and the 

 brighter portions of the corona were screened from him by a disk 

 of angular diameter three times that of the moon. He con- 

 sequently traced the rays much further than Mr. St. George, 

 though, allowing for this difference in conditions, the drawings 

 are fairly accordant. 



" On the Ultra-Violet Spectra of the Elements. Part IIL 

 Cobalt and Nickel." By Profs. Liveing and Dewar. 



The authors compare the results obtained by the Rutherfurd 

 grating which they used in measuring the wave-lengths of the 

 iron lines with those obtained with the larger Rowland's grating 

 used for measuring the wave-lengths recorded in this paper, and 

 find them closely concordant. They next compare the measures 

 of wave-lengths of the cadmium lines obtained by them by means 

 of a jilane Rowland's grating and a goniometer with an l8-inch 

 graduated circle with those obtained by Bell with a large concave 

 grating of 20 feet focal length. The result of the comparison 

 is that the plane grating gives measures which agree very closely 

 with those given by the concave grating, while the former gives 

 more light and is better for complicated spectra, such as those 

 described in this paper, because the overlapping spectra of differ- 

 ent orders are not all in focus together as they are when a concave 

 grating is used. 



The authors give a list of 580 ultra-violet lines of cobalt and 

 480 lines of nickel. They find a certain general resemblance of 

 the two spectra, but no such exact correspondence as the close 

 chemical relationship of the two metals would render probable. 

 They point out that the coincidences of lines of the two metals 

 are hardly, if at all, more in number than would have been the 

 case if the distribution of the lines had been fortuitous. They 

 give a map of each spectrum to the same scale as Angstrom's 

 normal solar spectrum. 



Linnean Society, March 15.— W. Carruthers, F.R.S., 

 President, in the chair.— On a ballot being taken, the following 

 were elected Fellows of the Society : Messrs. J. W. Taylor, 

 W. Gardiner, and David Sharp. The following were admitted 

 Fellows of the Society : Messrs. A. G. Renshaw and A. E. 

 Shipley.— Mr. J. Harting exhibited the frontal portion of the 

 .skull of a red-deer stag, which, although an adult animal, 

 had never possessed horns, and made some remarks on 

 the occasional occurrence of this abnormality. The stag in 

 question was one which had been shot some years ago by the late 

 Emperor of Germany in the Royal forest of Gohrde, in Hanover. 

 A discussion followed in which the President, Mr. Seebohm, and 

 Dr. Hamilton took part. — The first paper of the evening was 

 then read by Mr. George Massee, entitled " A Monograph of the 

 Thelophorea:," and drawings of several of these Fungi were ex- 

 hibited. The paper was criticized by Mr. A. W. Bennett and 

 Prof. Marshall Ward.— In the absence of the author, a paper by 

 Mr. E, A, Batters, describing three new marine Alga, was then 



read by the Botanical Secretary, Mr. B. Daydon Jackson, who 

 exhibited the drawings made to illustrate the paper. After some 

 critical remarks from the President, Mr. Harting pointed out 

 the indirect influence of the Gulf Stream in causing a deposition 

 of northern sea-weeds upon the north-east portion of the 

 English coast, where some of the species described had been 

 found. 



Zoological Society, March 20. — Mr. Henry Seeliohm in the 

 chair. — Mr. G. A. Boulenger read a note on the classification 

 of the Ranidae, in which, after speaking of the difficulty hitherto 

 experienced in dividing this large group satisfactorily, he called 

 attention to Peters's discovery that in certain forms a small ad- 

 ditional phalanx is present between the ultimate and what is 

 normally the penultimate phalanx. The author therefore pro- 

 posed to separate the family Ranidas into two groups, according 

 to the presence or absenceof this peculiar digital structure. — Mr. 

 G. B. Sowerby gave the description of sixteen new species of 

 shells, amongst which were two species of the genus Lima from 

 Hong Kong and Japan ; a remarkable species of the rare genus 

 Malletia from the Bay of Bengal ; a very distinct species of 

 Cyprcea from Japan ; and one of the largest species yet known 

 of the genus Cohunbella. — Mr. F. E. Beddard read some notes on 

 a freshwater Annelid, of which he had obtained specimens from 

 a tank in the Society's Gaxdens. Mr. Beddard referred these 

 specimens to a new species of the genus ALolosoma, which he 

 proposed to called^, headleyi. — Prof. Newton, F. R. S., com- 

 municated (on behalf of Mr. Scott Barchard Wilson) the de- 

 scription of Chloridops, anew generic form of Fringillidse, based 

 on a specimen obtained on the west coast of the Island of Hawaii, 

 Sandwich Group, which he proposed to name Chloridops koua. 

 Unfortunately the single example yet obtained was of the 

 female sex. 



Geological Society, March 14. —W. T. Blanford, F.R.S., 

 President, in the chair. — The following communications were 

 read : — On the gneissic rocks off the Lizard, by Howard Fox, 

 with notes on specimens by J. J. H. Teall. The rocks may be 

 classed under three heads : (i) the coarse gneisses or Men Hyr 

 type, (2) the light-banded granulitic gneisses or Wiltshire type, 

 and (3) the transition micaceous rocks of "Labham Reefs," type 

 intermediate between (2) and the mainland schists. The first 

 are seen in Mulvin, Taylor's Rock, Man-of-war Rocks, the Stags, 

 Men Par, Clidgas, Men Hyr, and Vasiler ; the second in Sans- 

 pareil, the Quadrant and adjoining reefs, Labham Rocks, &c. ; 

 and the third in the Labham Reefs. The inclination of the 

 divisional planes appeared conformable with that of the rocks of 

 the mainland. The gneisses and granulites of several of the 

 islands are traversed by numerous dykes of prophyritic basic 

 rock, seen in Taylor's Rock, Man-of-war Rocks, Sanspareil, 

 Quadrant Rock and Shoals, and Clidgas. These dykes have 

 been disturbed by movements subsequent to their intrusion. They 

 sometimes strike across the foliation-planes of the gneiss, and 

 send veins into the latter rock ; at other times the strike is parallel 

 to that of the foliation-planes ; the two modes of occurrence are 

 occasionally observable in different portions of the course of the 

 same dyke, e.g. in one traversing that part of the Man-of-war 

 group known as the Spire. This dyke is also noticeable from 

 the fact that it appears to be traversed by veins of gneiss. The 

 dykes vary in width from 18 inches to several feet. In his notes 

 on the specirtiens, Mr. Teall arranges the rocks in four groups. 

 Prof. Bonney spoke in high terms of the value of the work done, 

 as it was in a region accessible with difficulty, which time did 

 not permit him to explore when working at the rocks of the 

 mainland. — The Monian system, by the Rev. J. F. Blake. The 

 reading of this paper was followed by a discussion in which the 

 President, Dr. Hicks, Prof. Hull, and Prof. Bonney took part. 



Royal Meteorological Society, March 21. — Dr. W. 

 Marcet, F.R.S., President, in the chair.— The President 

 delivered an address on atmospheric electricity. He first 

 alluded to Franklin's experiments in America in 1752, who suc- 

 ceeded in obtaining the electricity of a storm-cloud by conducting 

 it along the string of a kite sent into the cloud. De Romas, in 

 Europe, repeated the experiment, and, having placed a wire 

 within the twine his kite was attached to, obtained sparks of 9 

 or ID feet in length. The characters of the two kinds of elec- 

 tricities were next described — the vitreous or positive, which was 

 produced by rubbing glass, and the resinous or negative, obtained 

 by rubbing sealing-wax or another resinous substance ; and it 

 was shown, by bringing suspended balls of pith within the in- 



